I am debating what to do if my Republican party becomes the progressive liberal party that it was under Ford and Nixon. I am a Reagan Republican. Nixon imposed price and WAGE controls to control inflation caused by his elimination of sound money. He did nothing to fight growth of government. He used the regulatory power of the FCC to keep opponents off the air. He used the IRS to punish opponents. He created more government agencies to regulate more of our lives at the federal level. He did not lower taxes and raised them.

Now the Republican party has again become home to a good number of people who want to return to the Nixon model of government.

Conservatives are the ones who have moved the nation in the right direction over the years. Reagan was right to believe that “Government is not the soluton to our problems, government is the problem”

Reagan ran on three objectives:

1) Strengthen our military
2) Cut taxes to spur incentive for entrepreneurs
3) Shrink the size of government.

Conservatives pushed the contract with America:

1.require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress;
2.select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
3.cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
4.limit the terms of all committee chairs;
5.ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
6.require committee meetings to be open to the public;
7.require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
8.guarantee an honest accounting of the Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

These ideas have strenght and principle behind them. They still have value.

Conservatives like Steve Forbes showed us that our tax code is a corrupting influence on government. That politicians manipulated the tax code to help certain groups, corporations, or rich individuals while hurting those who could not manipulate the system.

So why should I join in supporting Romney? when he: Opposed Reagan openly as recently as 1992, opposed the Contract with America, and spent $50,000 of his own money to oppose flat tax even though he was not even running for office!

Add to this, Romney’s creation of a government health program that has started to create the same type of problems in Massachucetts as seen in european health systems.

I grew up under Reagan. I know what Reagan stood for. I was proud of Reagan. Reagan was right to fight to change the Republican party within, I hope this can happen again. But already I have been forced to make my campaign donations directly to conservative candidates. I no longer trust the GOP to spend the money wisely.

I am a Reagan Republican and I refuse to go back to the Ford/Nixon progressive view.